When I’d attended Air Force navigator training at the now long gone Mather AFB, in Sacramento, CA, as a twenty-two/three year old, I had had several weird experiences. In this post I’ll discuss perhaps one of the weirdest things to ever happen to me.

“I just picked up my mail, and the strongest feeling came over me. I was pulling out of the parking lot—backing up out of the space (~1251 pm) when I didn’t feel like ME. I was wondering why the car felt so STRANGE. It didn’t feel right. It felt, to a part of me, like it was broke, the clutch went out, and wouldn’t start. But it felt more—it didn’t feel familiar! More so—neither did I!—I felt as if another person was coming over me! It was great! Ever since then (it’s 1:12) I’ve been feeling giddy—trembling w/a sort of anticipation of something. I had little other incidents where I felt different.

“Last night on Twilight Zone, I saw an episode where a person’s other personality took over—for the better (‘Man in a $4 a day room,’ or something).”

I actually remember thinking thoughts like “what am I doing?” As I’d mentioned, operating a car didn’t feel familiar anymore—I didn’t feel familiar to me anymore. I mean, I went through the motions, but my physical actions had been delayed and unfamiliar…clumsy…and I’d actually had to focus on what I’d been doing…driving the car…applying the gas…the brakes…shifting (which had become quite clumsy). I mean I could do what I was doing, but it was like I was outside myself and had to remind myself where I was and what I was doing.

But still…it all felt strangely unfamiliar to my hands and feet. My body.

As I’d thought about things then and now, I really feel that another version of me from another probability had reached out found 1984-Me and had decided to check things out. There was no malice involved…what I’d felt was an intense curiosity about driving and what was going on. Me. Nothing like this had ever happened before or since.

This has to rank as one of the weirdest experiences I’d ever had. While at Nav training as a Second Lieutenant, I’d had about a half-dozen or so weird experiences, which were fun rediscovering as I paged through my diary, and I’ll write them all up here. Along with this and my recent opened door experience (which discussed one I’d had at MAFB) I’d also found my “Vaudeville Act” experience that I thought I’d already written up but cannot find. And, apparently, I’d also met my Oversoul at MAFB—“in person.”

So…stay tuned…stay aware…and don’t be dismissive. There is Great Weirdness awaiting you out there, if you keep yourself open to the experiences!

Of course I need to thank Joyce Combs, my editor, for her sharp eye and editorial skills. To Pam Headrick for her formatting sorcery. There’s no other word for such witchery. And Lon Kirschner—for his incredible cover artistry! I couldn’t have done any of this without them! Thank you all so damned much!

I have to thank the American Book Fest! Their readers and judges! Thank you so much! I am truly honored and stunned! Mr. Jeffery Keen! Thank you! You were so quick and timely with all of our correspondence and responses to my questions, as well! I am truly honored and stunned!

Well, after nearly 40 years, I have finally released my first anthology!

And I received the review copy last week—and it’s, well, somewhat mind-blowing holding the 500-page book in my hands! These stories are a mixture of fantasy, horror, paranormal, and the metaphysical. I’m certain there’s something in here for everyone!

The book retails for $19.99, and is available through the Ingram distribution channels, and I only now just enabled it for “returns.” I’d waffled on doing that but decided…the main reason I went with IngramSpark was to get it into brick-and-mortar stores, and one of the little voices in my head kept telling me to take that chance. Unfortunately, I’m late for October, since the change won’t take effect until November 1st…but that still (I feel) favorably places it for the Holiday Season. Retailers are…

A very odd occurrence had happened this past Sunday, as I sat watching a recorded movie/TV show early (the first episode of The No-End House?, recorded on the SyFy Channel?, which was pretty good, I must say!) in the morning, for a change. I’m usually writing, but decided to take a break, since I’d finally gotten my anthology, Do The Dead Dream?, “to bed.” As I was watching this show, a door, which is just to the right of the screen, opened—

Or so it appeared!

I was the only one up, and it actually caused a chill to run through me.

I did a double-take…and no, the door had not…”opened.”

Or had it?

I thought it might have been a reflection in my glasses, or something in the movie that reflected in my glasses, so I rewound the movie. Nope.

But I’d actually seen the door open! No sound, just creepily and silently opening.

And not all the way, either, maybe about six or eight inches kinda thing, but I’d seen it.

Oddly, the first thing that entered my mind was when I was in navigator training, at Mather AFB, CA, back in ’83 (November 26th; I found it in my diary), where I’d awoken one morning about 9:30 or 10 a.m. to find the door to my Officer’s Quarters open a-little-over-a-foot to the parking lot outside. Yup. I didn’t do it…or remember doing it…it was just…open. It was a little windy that morning and had been windy that night. And as I’d closed and locked it, it hadn’t seemed “real,” I’d written in my diary. In fact I’d written:

“As I think about it, even after I closed it, it didn’t seem ‘real.’ Now I’m not ‘sure’ it happened at all! it seemed so odd. It still bugs the hell out of me. The whole atmosphere of it was surrealistic at the time.”

Anyway, that odd little event foreshadowed a huge change in my life…for I had ended up leaving the flight career path in the Air Force for another direction.

So…I sat there and looked to the door.

Which was closed.

Huh.

Was some other “huge event” coming?

Whatever had happened, all I know is that whatever did happened was cool. I mean, it really was creepy cool how I saw that door…just…silently…open….

Okay, well, I finally figured out how and what I’m doing with my blogs.

Since I’m tired of trying to get things to work as they should, and thinking about it for some six months, I’m linking back to this and my other blog site from my new website. I’ve removed the blog page I tried to create on fpdorchak.com and am simply linking back to these two sites. Then, in these sites’ headers I’ve created a Return To FPDORCHAK.COM selection. I haven’t figured out how to directly hyperlink that selection back to the website, so it takes you to a page where you select the Return To FPDORCHAK.COM.

This is my workaround, sorry about the extra redirect, but until I can figure out how to make a one-click to return to my main website, this is what I have.

Thank you for visiting my blogs and my new website, fpdorchak.com! I greatly appreciate your support!

Wendy and I tried to record this interview a week ago (the last interview that never happened…), but ran into…let’s just call it “doppelgänger issues”…and the interview was lost….

But yesterday, all things fell into place! The irony of it all was that this interview was originally scheduled for yesterday‘s date, but Wendy had moved it to the previous week (and there’s more about this in the podcast, above).

Insert doppelgänger issues.

Here we are now.

Sorry about the occasional feedback issues, but it is technology.

Wendy is so charming, gracious, and fun! Thank you, Wendy, for two fun interviews, thanks for having me, and I hope we do some more of these! Thank you, listeners, for listening! And thanks to Matt, for his excellent production efforts!